


You're Somebody Else

by AlexandersStele



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Coda, Eventual Romance, Fluff, I Was Drunk When I Wrote This, Lizard, Lizardhill, M/M, Magic, Pets, Silly, Speculation, What Was I Thinking?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-05
Updated: 2019-05-05
Packaged: 2020-02-26 13:12:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18717763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlexandersStele/pseuds/AlexandersStele
Summary: “I must say, you’re actually really cute. Magnus has great taste, even in picking his pets.”, Underhill said to the animal behind the glass, moving further to it to get a closer look.





	You're Somebody Else

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from flora cash

_You have to come over here quickly. I have to go. Something happened to Isabelle._

_I have to find a babysitter for Madzie. This might take a while. How long do you have?_

_It’s pretty urgent but don’t worry. I’ll call Underhill to wait here for you and let you in. I gotta go, I’ll check in with you later._

Alec quickly called his head of security, hoping it wouldn’t take long. He knew he shouldn’t worry about this stupid lizard right now, his sister needs him, but knowing Underhill, he’d be here in a heartbeat.

Underhill arrived in the loft not more than fifteen minutes later. Alec asked himself if he ran here, but that didn’t really matter now. He needed to get to his sister as soon as possible.

“So, what kind of magical creature were you talking about?”, Underhill inquired, his face simultaneously showing curiosity and worry.

“It’s Magnus’ pet lizard”, Alec explained. “I didn’t really notice it before. I didn’t even know Magnus had a pet lizard but this morning I heard a weird noise and saw it scratching this message into the glass, so there must be something wrong with it. Listen, I know it seems silly and I don’t really have time to explain everything now. I have to get back to the Institute immediately, I just need you to stay here and wait for Catarina to check on it.”

With that said, Alec turned around and ran out the front door of Magnus’ loft, leaving a baffled Underhill behind.  
___

After snapping out of the initial shock about Alec storming out like that with no real explanation whatsoever, Underhill slowly turned around to face the terrarium.

“I must say, you’re actually really cute. Magnus has great taste, even in picking his pets.”, Underhill said to the animal behind the glass, moving further to it to get a closer look.  


He had seen lizards before, but usually not ones that were kept as pets and definitely not ones that can carve messages in a language that he could actually understand. If this were a demon creature, he would expect Chtonian or another demonic language. But English? Definitely not.

The chameleon had its back turned to him and didn’t seem to notice him at first, but as he was circling the terrarium, it jumped, turned around, froze on the spot and turned into a slight pinkish color.

“Oh, don’t be scared, little one. I mean you no harm.” Underhill exclaimed, moving even further to the terrarium to gently place his hand on the glass, trying to calm the creature down.

Even though the lizard seemed to relax a little bit at his words, it still maintained the pinkish coloring before it started moving into Underhill’s direction. He took a step back not knowing what awaited him. He should be careful. It might look cute but it’s a demonic creature after all. The chameleon moved all the way to the glass wall and placed its tiny claws to the exact same spot Underhill’s hand had been just a second ago and nothing else happened.

“Fuck it.”, Underhill murmured to himself, took a step forward again and placed his hand back on the glass wall. “So, what’s your deal? You want to play? You want to get out of there?”

The lizard stared at him with its big googly eyes, slightly tilted its head and started scratching on the glass wall of the terrarium. 

“You seem distressed, it won’t hurt to get you out of there to comfort you a bit until Catarina gets here, will it?”, Underhill said to the reptile, knowing very well that he was basically talking to himself and that he probably wasn’t going to get an answer back but he tried anyway.

He opened the lid of the terrarium and gently took the chameleon out of it, placing it on his hand to take a better look at it. It didn’t move at all and just kept staring at him which he took as a sign of reassurance that he wouldn’t be eaten alive anytime soon.

“Okay, you haven’t tried to kill or enchant me yet, so I guess it’ll be fine for you to stay out here until Catarina arrives.”, Underhill told the creature which, as weird as it sounds, looked kind of satisfied at his words. 

“I must say, your coloring is breathtaking. How do you do that color change?”, he inquired, slowly brushing his finger over the lizard’s back which suddenly turned a bright red at his touch as if it was blushing.

Underhill’s eyes widened. “Oh my God, this is amazing! I hope that doesn’t mean you’ll explode in a second or throw a death ray into my way. I don’t want to be remembered as the head of security who was killed after petting a demonic chameleon.”, he chuckled but nothing _evil_ happened. On the contrary. The reptile started nuzzling its head into Underhill’s palm.

“You’re cute. Maybe I should get a pet lizard, too. But I don’t know if they’ll allow this at the Institute. I think I should check what the protocols have to say about that when I get back. But for now, let’s just relax a bit until Catarina arrives. I really need a break and I always wanted to check out how comfy these sofas are.”

He turned around, carrying the chameleon to one of Magnus’ sofas and slowly sat down. “Well, I guess they’re just supposed to look nice and not be comfy but it’s way better than anything we have back at the Institute.”, Underhill realized, but settled even further into the cushions to find a more comfortable position.

“Ahh, this is better. Let’s just hope Catarina will be here soon. It’s nice to have a little break but there’s actually a war going on outside and I don’t think I should idle for too long.” 

The shadowhunter placed the reptile on his belly and almost dozed off while unconsciously stroking the lizard’s head and back. He suddenly snapped out of it when the animal started to randomly change colors, going back and forth from green, blue, red, and basically all the colors of the rainbow in a speed that didn’t seem intentional. His eyes widened once again, staring at the beauty of the colorful being, trying to catch every single color it was recreating. He took his hand off the creature and the changing of colors suddenly came to a stop. “Interesting.”, he thought, placing his hand back on the animal and the color changing started again. 

“Am I hurting you? This seems unusual, maybe I should stop.”, he said, when suddenly there was a knock at Magnus’ front door.  
___

“Sorry it took me so long, it was almost impossible to find a babysitter on such short notice.”, Catarina explained. “So, where is this lizard Alec was talking about?”

Underhill, who had gently placed the lizard back to its terrarium to let Catarina in, reassured her that it was okay and explained the situation as much as he could to her but decided it’s best to just show her.

“This doesn’t look like a demonic creature, it just looks like a normal chameleon.”, Catarina observed, “But this message? I don’t know how to explain this. I’ve never seen anything like it. Oh, what has this idiot done now? You can’t leave him alone for one second.” Catarina rolled her eyes. “Let me take a closer look.”

Catarina took the reptile out of its cage, dropping it on her hand while Underhill tried to keep a safe distance. She placed her other hand on top of the animal and a wave of blue sparks started surrounding it.

“Erm, I don’t think this is a lizard at all.”, she suddenly exclaimed. “I can feel demon and human blood running through its veins. Oh Magnus, what have you done?”

“So, if it has demon and human blood, does that mean it’s a warlock? How does that even work?”, Underhill inquired, looking slightly embarrassed when he thought about petting a warlock instead of a harmless animal.

“Warlock magic has many possibilities.”, she responded calmly. “I think I can reverse this.”

She gently placed the chameleon on the floor of Magnus’ loft, whirling her hands around, blue sparks flying across the room until they hit the spot where the reptile was sitting. Slowly the animal kept growing and changing up to the point when its silhouette transformed into the stature of a full-grown man.

“Lorenzo!”, Catarina cried out, her eyes wide and full of terror. “How did this happen?”

“I’m gonna kill him.”, Lorenzo spat, rushing to the front door when a voice from the corner of the room emerged.

“I think that won’t be possible. If you’re talking about Magnus, I must tell you he’s currently trapped in Edom.”, Underhill tried to explain.

Lorenzo turned around, his facial expression softening all of a sudden and a slight blush started creeping up his neck at the sight of the handsome shadowhunter.

“I think my work here is done. You can tell me all about it later, but I have to go now.”, Catarina intervened with a smirk and was gone in a heartbeat.

Underhill, promptly realizing that it was in fact Lorenzo he was cuddling half of the afternoon, started staring at the ground and mumbled: “I should go, too. I have to report back to Alec.” He started walking towards the front door, more quickly than he intended to, when a hand caught his arm.

“Not so fast, young shadowhunter. I can’t let you leave before you tell me your name at least.”

“Andrew.”, he blurted out, surprise overtaking his facial features. “Andrew Underhill.”

“Well, nice to meet you Andrew. How about we get a drink one of these days?”

**Author's Note:**

> I was drunk when I wrote this and I thought it's a good idea. Apologies xD


End file.
